


Kemet

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Forty days after Dave’s death, he is ready to regrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kemet

John doesn't want to go outside. 

The secluded Washington apartment is  _almost_  too much to bear as is. There are extra toothbrushes and dirty black jeans curled on the headboard. There are vinyls mixed in a bizarre pattern of organization that John can't make much sense of--he can't see any reason why Parliament-Funkadelic is filed in between Judas Priest and some experimental indie project called Izzy Reese and the Amun-Ras, or if there's really any rhyme to the order at all. There's a red sock crusted on the bathroom floor that he's yet to chisel free. He did have the bathtub replaced, though. But only at the urging of Rose. John probably would have let that rust ring stay there forever if not for her.

Still, there are enough paltry reminders lying around the house, so John doesn't need the burn of the sun outside to hammer home bigger and thicker and  _sharper_  memories. 

Because the outside is the symbol of everything that has gone awry. Everything that's lost forever. Everyone that's  _ended_  and won't come back. It's reminder upon reminder stacked up like a monstrous cake slathered in stale frosting and filled with bitter cream that tastes like metal and vomit in his mouth.  

Above all, outside is too bright, when it really has no right to be. 

The outside is the slant of sunbeams that once glowed on hair now made softer and lighter through the nostalgic lens. And John can hardly take it, especially not since the sight of a tow-headed kid in a red windbreaker near sent him into hysterics. Not since the simple progression of the sun across the sky started reminding him of a stupid romantic metaphor that  _he'd_  liked to use. Assigning heavenly bodies to homos like the tool he was. 

Not since John realized that one would had to have really loved someone in order to make the mere memory of some dumb comment of theirs sour one on the fucking  _sun._

 As such it's become easy target for him to channel his frustration and anger and confusion towards. John should have known that someone so special couldn't stay away from the sun for so long. Sooner or later he was bound to be zapped up and drawn into the core by jealous flares, or maybe mother arms welcoming someone too bright to live back into the fiery fold. Or maybe it had been some enticing promise of reunion with the bright light that birthed him that had convinced him to cut his own lifeline and fall back up into space. Leaving John behind to hold the severed cord and wonder  _why_ he'd been cursed with a taste for celestials. 

\-------------------------------

Forty days after Dave's death the dawn doesn't bring sunlight into John's room. 

Forty days after Dave's death the drought ends and rain patters down upon the hot stone roof and cuts the grime on the windows. 

Forty days after Dave's death John stops dreaming about green faces drowning in the red dark. 

Forty days after Dave's death John clutches at the handle before sliding open the door to the balcony and stepping out. Forty days after Dave's death he feels stale water crinkle under his feet. 

Forty days after Dave's death a font of relief drips from the sky. Forty days after Dave's death John's skin and shirt are plastered together as rain washes black silt over his banks and forty days after Dave's death it overflows emotion until John's mending mind is rich and fertile, unbaked without the blasting heat. 

Forty days after Dave's death, he is ready to regrow. 


End file.
